


And I Will Still Be Here, Stargazing

by DynamicDuo (XylB)



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, an irresponsible amount of space romanticisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29946294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XylB/pseuds/DynamicDuo
Summary: Space takes on a different meaning when you know the people up there, when you can confuse position lights for superheroes and superheroes for comets, and the ever-expansive starry sky doesn't seem so untouchable, anymore, when you know the people rearranging solar systems.Connor's taken to stargazing, but not for the view, not for the twinkling lights and reflective moons and distant red planets he can only catch glimpses of through a telescope. Those are secondary, back-burner, to his memories, to the sentiment he carries for a certain Green Lantern. To the months prior, and the memory of mapping star charts on the beach, and the memory of almost -Connor shakes the thought away. It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do, because either way it's ended up with him sitting on his roof, still stargazing, still aching in the hollows of his heart.
Relationships: Connor Hawke/Kyle Rayner
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	And I Will Still Be Here, Stargazing

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Stargazing" by Severo.

Star City isn't named for its stargazing. Truth be told, Connor's not entirely sure _why_ it's called Star City. There's more stars visible than other cities, arcing over the ocean and disappearing like drops of paint into the horizon, but the aircraft lights and smoke still confuse the constellations. This time of night, Connor can trace out Cassiopeia in her throne, from Schedar to Caph to Ruchbah. Kyle had taught him the names, sketched out on recycled paper and holes poked through with pencils so he could hold it up to the sky and show Connor the connections. 

"I'm just spitballing here, but maybe you should try telling him." 

Connor snorts, not tearing his gaze from the sky as Roy sits down beside him, his quiver crunching against the asphalt behind them. 

"I thought you were on patrol tonight," he says. 

"I finished early." Roy fishes a chocolate bar out of his pocket and breaks it into pieces inside the wrapper. "Saw my little brother moping on his roof and figured I'd join him." 

"I'm only two years younger than you." 

"Still counts as little." Roy nudges him with a piece of chocolate, tipping his head back to look up at the stars. "What're we looking at?" 

"Cassiopeia." Connor leans back on a hand and points out the individual stars, their names rolling easy off his tongue, borrowed from Kyle's all those months ago. Roy hums along in reply, peeling his domino off to see them better, without the blue-light filter that shadows all their lenses. 

They both know the myth, but Connor repeats it anyway, just to hear it phantom in Kyle's voice in his head, eked out by pencil marks on the paper as he traced Andromeda and Perseus. Even now he can recall the sweep of graphite from Mirach to Almach, the punched-points of pencil tips through Algol and Mirfak to show their brightness, the smudge of fingertips ruining Kyle's pretty, confident lines and mussing up the shine. Kyle had only laughed about it, as easygoing and forgiving as ever, and under there, under the stars, dripped in moonlight and smiles, Connor had wanted nothing more than to press the acid of greedy fingertips into their shared canvas. 

He hadn't, but Kyle had smiled at him like he _wanted_ him to, and with Perseus reflected in his eyes, Connor almost had. 

"When's he coming back?" Roy asks it kindly, the chocolate bar almost decimated between them, lost in crumbs to the ground far below. 

"I don't know." 

"Your calendar has next Tuesday circled." 

Sometimes Connor hates how observant Roy is. 

"That could be for anything," he replies, quirking a smile at Roy's triumphant chuckle. 

"It could be," Roy allows. 

"It's not a solid date." Oa is unpredictable. Missions run longer, cut shorter, swerve into dangerous, and Connor has very little idea of what Kyle's doing up there. Roy shoots him a funny look. 

"I think it might be," he murmurs. Connor doesn't reply. If he squints he can almost see the silvery lines strung between Alpheratz and Delta. 

There's something to be drawn from falling stars and the wishes Connor makes on them, a holdover from childhood he never quite shook off. Kyle had reintroduced him to it, playful when he crossed his wrists on the railing of Connor's balcony and tipped his head and asked if Connor had ever mistook a GL for one of those falling stars. His suit was still radiating the cold of space, still tinged with frostburn on the edges, ruffled in his hair, like moonlight personified, and somewhere along the way Connor stopped wishing on stars and started counting on them instead. 

Sometimes Kyle returns heat-singed and fiery, a meteor that didn't quite brake in time, evident in the peeling black of his gauntlets, the warped soles of his boots. He's extremes, ice and fire and the open, endless void of space and the teeming life of the universe, wrapped up in bow shocks and nebula dust and solar flares on planets Connor's never heard of. 

And somehow he always ends up gravitating back to Earth, back to Star City, back to Connor's balcony. A gravity well of a black hole of a comet that brushes too close to the chromosphere and falls back to the stratosphere like a trampoline. Kyle always bounces back. One day Connor wonders if he'll find a new trampoline, a new Earth, a new home that isn't as far off the star chart. 

Roy's fingers are wind-whipped cold through the fabric of Connor's shirt, curled over his shoulder, grounding him in that gravity well once more. Black hole. Star City. 

"Y'know, I won't say anything to Dinah if you want to meet him at the Watchtower next week." 

"You're unhelpful." 

"I know." 

Connor sighs and finally drops his eyes from the sky to study the horizon instead, where the ocean curves around endlessly. The waves crash disharmoniously in the distance, pulled to-and-fro by the half-moon above them. If he blinks fast enough, he can pretend the wing light jetting over their heads is someone else entirely. 

"I wouldn't know what to say," Connor says eventually. He lowers his eyes to his hands, his fingertips still smudged with remnants of Roy's chocolate bar. He didn't grow up with American media and pop culture and - and how do you even ask _anyone_ out, let alone a superhero who spends half the year up in the stars. 

He doesn't know the language. He's never done things by halves, but this feels like something he should take in fourths, in fifths, minor fall and major lift or however the song goes. Piecemeal, inching towards _what if_ s and _if only_ s. The weeks and months that Kyle spends on Earth blend into one same long routine. He doesn't even live in Star, but he visits often enough to fool even Connor. 

And it's always the same. They team up, they work. Missions on the Monday, weekend work backlogs on the Wednesday, and Connor falls in love all over again on the Friday. 

"Just be honest." 

Connor flexes his fingers, watches the scars on his knuckles pinch and spread with the movement. "Even I know you're supposed to have a first date before saying you lo- " he swallows the words on an inhale. Roy catches his meaning in a hitched breath. 

"Con, he works in space. It's a little late for normal." 

"Oh, ha- _ha_." 

"I'm not kidding. Tell him." 

Connor sighs. "I don't want to ruin what we have, Roy." 

"You won't." 

"You don't know that." 

"You're, like, his best friend." Roy squeezes his shoulder, friendly and brotherly all at once. 

"And I don't want to make it awkward." 

"Shut up." 

"I'm serious, telling him will just- " 

"No, shut _up_." Roy wiggles his shoulder and that's what prompts Connor to lift his head. Roy flicks his eyes behind them. 

"Bad time?" 

_Kyle_. Connor twists to face him, Roy's hand slipping easily from his shoulder. 

"You're not supposed to be back yet," Connor says. Kyle touches down softer than a whisper, his green glow dimming until it leaves only his suit on. The shoulders are singed, the boots scorched. Impatient. 

"We wrapped it up early." He grins, all boyish charm and nerves. 

Connor draws a leg up to the roof. "How'd you know I was up here?" 

"Roy told me." Kyle lifts his ring hand, a guilty flicker in his smile. "And I kinda have your heat signature recorded." 

"That sounds like my cue to leave," Roy says, clapping Connor on the shoulder and using it to push himself up. 

Connor shoots him a look. Roy raises his hands in mock surrender. 

"In my defence, he would've found you anyway," he says while backing up. With a salute to both of them, he jumps backwards off the building, a move pulled straight out of Dick's playbook. A second later, the _thunk_ of a grapple gun catches him, and he swings out of view. 

Kyle folds himself into the space Roy left, compounded down into a human being once more. Connor will never tire of it, the switch from Lantern to Kyle, when he drops the way he holds himself and collapses fully into whatever will catch him. Leftover heat still radiates from his suit, thrumming with the energy of the exosphere. It takes every ounce of willpower Connor has to not lean into it. 

"You can almost see Pegasus tonight," Kyle comments, tipping his head back as his domino melts away. The stars twinkle above them, their constellations naught else but imagination, but Connor's not tracing their lines now. The curve of Kyle's cheek sweeps neatly into his jawline, into the upturn of his nose and the shadow of his eye sockets, broken only by the flyaway strands of hair brushing over his eyelashes. 

Connor's fingertips itch to touch, ache hollow to plot out the constellation lines from the corner of Kyle's mouth to the crinkle of his eyes, like Caph to Schedar, reaching out into the swirling depths of Cepheus. 

"Too cloudy," Connor agrees. Kyle's gaze pulls from the sky to meet his moments before he smiles at him, as slow and sweet as molasses. Connor wants to push his acid thumbprint into the dimple on Kyle's left cheek and chip away the paint keeping them apart. 

Kyle drops his eyes first. Connor follows their path to a pocket on Kyle's thigh that he's unzipping. 

"I got you something," Kyle says, and pulls out a folded page of sketchbook paper. He hesitates with it in his hands. Connor can hear the scratch of paper against his thumbs as he skims it, wetting his lips as his fingers solidify. He passes it to Connor. "Happy birthday." 

Kyle's fingertips are unseasonably warm when they brush Connor's, and he doesn't know if the static on them is the fault of the Aurora Borealis or his own lovestruck, fluttering heart. 

"Sorry it's not - more professional," Kyle continues, running a hand through his hair as Connor unfolds the paper. "I didn't have - I didn't get back in time to transfer it." 

Connor opens his mouth to reply, only for it to disappear in a soft exhale when he opens the page. He pins it in the corners with his fingers on his lap, careful to avoid smudging the delicate, bold lines of pencil striking through the softer, fuller shading. 

It's a star chart. A hand _made_ star chart, each star sketched unique, a shadow of binary systems and main-sequence denominations eclipsing the soft, scratched lines to connect the constellations. It's a view Connor recognises, it's a view he has another sketchbook copy of in his room, with pencil-tip punched-out holes to place over the stars - 

"It's the view from the beach," Kyle says. "The exact view, time and everything, from when we almost - " He cuts himself off with a swallow, one echoed in the lump in Connor's throat. 

"It's - this is _amazing_ , Kyle." The line weight pulls together in the centre, swirling the whole sky down to the pinpoint pixels that would have been directly above them, in spacetime that only a GL could know. Connor glances up at the sky, a near mirror of the drawing, and then to Kyle, who's looking steadfastly down at the paper on Connor's lap. 

"How'd you remember?" Connor asks. "The details, I mean, it's - it's really impressive." 

Kyle clears his throat. His ring lights up in his lap, projecting a smaller version of the beach view constellations. 

"I asked it to - I wanted to...I asked the ring to record it," he murmurs, glancing down at the projection. "Because I wanted - " the projection flickers off. "I can delete it if that's creepy." 

A different source of heat tinges Connor's ears and crawls across his cheeks. "It's not creepy," he replies. "Not at all." 

Kyle's mouth twitches with a smile that doesn't quite form. 

Connor wonders how long he spent staring at that projection in his room on Oa, wonders how many times he spun the world on its axis just in the green glow. Wonders if it compares to the number of times Connor's ventured back to the beach, back to the flat sand, tilted his head up and wondered what could have been if he'd just followed Perseus's example. 

Kyle's still staring down at his lap. His cheeks are tinged just a touch darker, and not from the reentry. 

"I didn't know if you'd like it," he admits, meeting Connor's eyes with a sheepish little smile. 

Connor weighs his response as he gathers up the sketch. The paper refolds easily underneath his careful fingers, tucks neatly into the breast pocket of his overshirt. 

"I'd like anything you gave me," he says, and he's talking about so much more than the sketch. Kyle can tell, by the way he holds Connor's eyes. 

"Even - the beach?" It's not the question that makes Connor's heart race in his chest. It's the way Kyle looks at him, his bold outburst undercut by the shadows in his eyes, by the uncertainty in the pull of his mouth. 

There's a million different ways to answer that question. _It was a fun night_. _I like learning about the stars from the other side. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. You just had to ask -_

_I almost -_

"Is that really a surprise?" Connor whispers it, doesn't think he could scrape up much more from his breathless lungs. 

Kyle studies him for a long moment, like Connor's one of those constellations, like he's held together by starlight and myth and imagination. Like he's not quite flesh-and-bone, like _he's_ the one that falls from space every month. 

"I don't know," Kyle breathes. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and turns away, any fragile bravery in his frame crumbled right into nerves. "I don't know." With a sudden sigh, he scrubs his hands over his face. "I - look, I'm gonna - I just wanted to give you your present before it hit midnight." He shifts, pitches sideways, draws a leg up - 

Connor grabs his wrist before he can stand up. 

"Can we - I want - " Connor flounders for words, staring at Kyle like he's dumbfound, and he _is_ , in a way, but not - it's not - 

Connor presses his fingerprints to Kyle's jaw, sweeps his thumb right over the dimple and leans in, pauses, just enough for Kyle to huff out a breath and finish closing the gap. Kyle makes this quiet little noise as he kisses him, like surprise and delight all mixed into one. It's clumsy, ill-fitted, Connor inching back and Kyle following, gravel skittering under his palm as he plants it behind them, presses a desperate exhale against Connor's cheek, stutters when Connor brushes his fingers up and into his hair, curves to his jaw, sour plumes of meteor smoke rising up off the shoulders of Kyle's suit. 

Kyle kisses like he's saying goodbye, soft and sweet and aching in the way he grips Connor's waist, in the tilt of his head and the nudge of their noses, breathing into each other's space. 

But when they do separate, nothing chips and cracks under Connor's touch. Kyle's dimple pops again with his involuntary smile, and his hair tickles at Connor's nose, and he's warm and alive and breathing even though he still smells like a crash test dummy. 

"I couldn't stop thinking about it," Connor murmurs, his forehead to Kyle's. "I didn't know how to - if you'd want - " 

"I'm sorry I had to go." Kyle tugs his hands down to hold them in his own, fingers curled around to press over his knuckles. The gloves dissolve to press their skin together, fervent and warm and damp in the palms. "I'm so sorry." 

"Kyle, I get it. I work the same job." And when schedules call, schedules call, and Connor doesn't know if it would have been better or worse for them to kiss on that beach when Kyle had a scheduled flight back to Oa the next morning. Was it better unresolved or would it have worked with the last-minute confessions? 

Any thought to the _what if_ s discards itself the moment Kyle kisses him again, and suddenly Connor knows what stardust tastes like, know how meteor burn chaps his lips, knows how warmth soothes it almost instantly, a gentle, pulsating thing unfolding in his chest just like the sketchbook page. 

Between them, Kyle's ring thrums with energy, rewriting its projection memory to their new star chart, but Connor doesn't give any thought to the stars when he has the sun in his hands. 


End file.
